


Indestructible

by trace_of_scarlet



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Runaways (Comics)
Genre: Crossover, Friendship, Gen, Gratuitous dorkery, Male-Female Friendship, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:17:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trace_of_scarlet/pseuds/trace_of_scarlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of drabbles for Bruce Banner and Molly 'Bruiser' Hayes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indestructible

**Author's Note:**

> This is Molly from comicsverse Marvel and movieverse Bruce Banner. If you're wondering why I combined the two, or why Molly pings from twelve-year-old to adult and back again, come along to [Milliways Bar](http://milliways-bar.dreamwidth.org) \- the first drink's on the house!
> 
> Quotes in the third drabble are from JK Rowling and A.A. Milne.

**Young**  
"Bruce." Molly is looking at him, eyes already glowing. "Does it hurt?" 

"Uh." He struggles with words; with the Other Guy bubbling under his skin, his thoughts stutter and stop. "Every - every time." 

"I'm sorry." The last thing he feels, before the Other Guy takes over, is her taking his hand.

 **Grown**  
“Molly, I can’t -”

He looks up at her desperately, like he’s begging her to escape the bomb-blast (run, run away as fast as you can, you can’t catch me), and suddenly realisation hits her: she’s seen this before, with the broken kids at Xavier’s. Some emotions can’t be helped until they run their course; sometimes there’s nothing to do but absorb the pressure and fix things later.

“Bruce, if you can’t stop it, then let it happ-”

“ _NO!_ ”

He’s only getting angrier, panicking, but she keeps talking. “I’m here, I’m here, nobody’s gonna get hurt, Bruce. It’s okay, I promise, but if you can’t fight it then don’t and we’ll deal with it, okay? It’s going to be okay.”

He still doesn’t believe her, or maybe can’t bear to believe her, but all he says is ‘ _please_ ’, low and guttural and probably heart-breaking if she weren’t too busy trying not to freak out to pay attention to that kind of thing.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says, and holds his flashing-green gaze. “It’s okay, Bruce.”

And it totally isn’t okay, not in any alternate universe, but either he can’t fight it any longer or he does let it happen, because suddenly bones crack and sinews and clothing tear like a long, painful lightning sizzle, and then it’s– _him_.

The Other Guy.

Molly stares up, and up, and does some hasty reconsideration of her previous ideas concerning what she’s going to continue thinking of as the Hulk, even though she knows Bruce hates that name. She’d said, once, that he and Bruce were not the same person, but the more she looks at the Hulk the more she can see Bruce. It’s like looking at a Bruce made out of plasticine: even his hair is different, but Bruce is still there, in the eyes and mouth and shape of the jaw. She’s not afraid, suddenly – she was never afraid of the Hulk himself (because Bruce isn’t scary, could never be scary) but although she’s worried about how upset Bruce will be when he comes back, she isn’t scared. They can fix it, she thinks, because he hasn’t tried to hit her yet, and somehow she doesn’t think he will.

“Hey, Big Guy,” she says, and smiles. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

 **Young**  
"As Hagrid had said, what would come would come... and he would have to meet it when it did."

There is a lull as Molly closes the book, as if she stood - or, well, sat - at the eye of the storm. And then the Hulk roars and it's like a bomb blast, as if everything capable of screaming is roaring all at once, as if everything - sound, time, her thoughts, her breathing - has fled, is lost in the absolute _noise_ of him.

And then it stops, and the Hulk looks at her green-eyed and uncomprehending that she hasn't run, that she still won't run.

"I always hate it when that book ends, too," she says placidly, shifting position so that instead of swinging her legs she's sitting comfortably cross-legged on the office desk. "Even though the dementors used to totally freak me out."

The Hulk makes this weird little sound, sort of confused and sort of enquiring, and for a moment she can almost kind of see Bruce there again, like he's trapped and wants out just as much as the Hulk wants out of his unbreakable cell. (She used to think there were dementors under her bed, until she realised that the real world had way scarier things in it.)

"It's alright to freak out," she tells him, because maybe Bruce can hear her and even if he can't, the Hulk can. "I wouldn't like being put in a box either. But I'm not gonna leave, okay? So you don't have to be scared, 'cause you're not on your own."

If you asked her which of them she was speaking to right now she couldn't tell you, because it's true for either of them - it's not like the Hulk really seems like a bad person (he's still basically Bruce, after all), he just freaks out easy, like how Gert always gets angry and shouts when she's panicking. And maybe he wouldn't flip out so bad if people didn't always either run away or try to hurt him.

"If you're good and stop yelling so much, I'll go get you cake," she promises. "When you go back to being Bruce again, anyway. But really you can make all the noise you want, 'cause you can't scare me."

The Hulk stares down at her and she looks straight back up at him, her own eyes tired but just as green. It's like the weirdest stand-off she's ever been in, and she might only be thirteen-and-three-quarters but that's still seriously saying something. She doesn't know what it is that does the trick, but eventually the Big Guy seems to give in or give up or settle down or whatever, crashing like an earthquake into a seated position on the floor of his cell - although she'd be the most surprised mutant _ever_ if he stayed that way for very long.

"Good boy," she says encouragingly, and takes a slurp of her milkshake before picking up a new book to read. " _Order of the Phoenix_ is way creepier than the earlier books, 'cause it's got Professor Umbridge in it and she's, like, the most horrible _ever_ and she's really mean to people she thinks are freaks like me. And you probably don't need to wig out any more than you have already, so I guess this might work instead, 'cause my mom always read it to me when I'd had a nightmare, and it always used to help me sleep."

The Hulk grunts, which probably counts as agreement, so she pushes back one floppy pink ear of her hat and smoothes out the first page of her book.

"Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin..."

 **Grown**  
She knows as soon as she hears him shout her name that their chances of getting through this without the Hulk as a guest star are basically shot, but she wouldn't let that stop her even if she knew that for certain.

On the plus side, at least it gives her an idea of his location; maybe she'll have to break the whole place apart to get to him, but she'll do it.

Which means that she can either try to keep him calm and make herself the target, or keep quiet and let him take his chances... And, well. Who is she trying to kid?

She was born to be the target, after all.

"I'm coming!" she yells, a promise to him and a threat to anyone in her way, and begins to run.


End file.
